Final Journey
by G. G. Fernandez
Summary: Oswin Oswald always wanted a life in space. Starship Alaska gave her that opportunity. Her first journey wasn't exactly what she had planned, she ended up shipwrecked. However, a year later, a new hope arrived who called himself the Doctor, a man with knowledge of a haunting part of her past, a part she was still struggling to deal with
1. Starship Alaska

**Chapter 1: Starship Alaska**

The Entertainment Deck of the Interstellar Starship Alaska was vaguely similar to the vessel her father used to command, the Starship Hammersmith, when she was a child. The room she was currently in, the main entertainment hall, had been set up and was raring to go, ready for the celebrations which were due to commence in a week's time. Their first group of passengers were waiting on a planet in another system a few days away so until then all they could do was wait.

She couldn't deny it, she was really excited. All her life she had dreamt of seeing the stars, that was the reason she had joined the Alaska in the first place. 'Junior Entertainment Manager'… if she was honest she would have preferred to actually be a member of the crew but as she had dropped out of the Space Academy the year before, she hadn't actually gained her qualifications. However, 'Junior Entertainment Manager' had a nice ring to it so she really wasn't that bothered. Space had always been her one true love so to be able to have a job where she got to travel amongst it made her ultimately content.

"All hands, this is Captain Jefferson." the voice of the ship's Captain hailed over the inter-ship communication system, "We are breaking orbit. Please make sure your sections are secure. Jefferson out."

Another member of the Entertainment staff and her close friend Louise Pettigrew quickly did as the Captain ordered.

During that time, she turned to look out of the window on her left. Her lips curled into a small smile as she gazed down at the planet below. Although the majority of it was covered by large weather systems, her home country of England being beaten with a severe tropical storm, she smiled at the sight. Seeing the Earth from orbit had always been her favourite sight… 'The green and blue marble of the Solar System', that's what her father used to call it.

The Alaska shuddered as it broke away from the Earth's gravity, causing the coffee in the cup she was holding to ripple. Subconsciously, she placed her other hand over the rim until the shuddering ceased and the ship began its journey out of the Solar System. She kept her eyes locked on her beloved planet and took a sip of her coffee.

It was her first journey away from home… she was allowed to have mixed feelings about leaving, wasn't she?

Louise soon noticed her gaze and smiled slightly as she watched the Earth slowly decrease in size.

"Oswin?" she queried.

Jumping slightly, Oswin turned to face her friend and smiled softly as she brushed her hand through her hair.

"Sorry." she whispered, "It is my first time after all."

Louise nodded in agreement and smiled slightly. Ever since meeting Oswin when they both attended the Space Academy the year before, she knew how much a life in space meant to her.

Oswin turned back to look out the window which only increased Louise's smile. She loved seeing her friend happy, especially after all the problems she had experienced over the last year. Not only had she lost her place in the Academy after missing her exams when she returned home to London when her mother took ill, she had also lost her father through a Dalek attack in Massachusetts a few months beforehand. Despite the fact that she had been there at the time, she luckily survived along with a group of seven young children as the US Airforce managed to send the brutal creatures on their way. Louise knew for a fact that that incident had really affected her but if anything, it had only increased her determined to venture out into space and follow in her father's footsteps.

Louise casually stood next to her friend and the pair of them began looking out at the Earth as they passed the little red planet, more commonly known as Mars, and approached Jupiter.

"Beautiful sight ain't it?" Louise attempted to confirm.

Oswin nodded a little. "Absolutely." she replied, "This is what I've always wanted to see…"

Louise smiled and turned her attention to Mars which currently had four satellite stations orbiting it.

"It's hard to believe that's been colonised for five years now." she stated, referring to Mars.

Oswin shrugged her shoulders once she had turned to look at it.

"Well, ever since the Bowie Base One disaster a few centuries ago, I'm surprised they colonised it at all." she said.

Louise rolled her eyes. "They don't use the water from the Ice Field, Oz." she reminded her.

"Yeah, but it's still there." Oswin pointed out, "All it would take is one contaminant… then with the amount of transport to Earth from Mars, who knows what could happen."

"Oz, you're looking too deep into it." Louise warned, "Scientists have confirmed that the microbes are dormant, nothings gonna happen. Besides, there's much worse out there than flipping Martian Water Alien microbes."

Oswin immediately turned to face her friend. At 5ft 2in, she wasn't the tallest person around yet she was noticeably taller than Louise who was lucky to reach the 5ft marker.

"Like what exactly?" Oswin quizzed.

Louise kept her gazed fixed on the planets outside, trying not to turn and face her friend's stare.

"Aliens…" she answered.

She could feel Oswin's eyes burning at her skin. She knew that she knew she was thinking about the Daleks. For years she had constantly made the mistake of mentioning things she knew she shouldn't at the wrong times and unfortunately for her, Oswin certainly knew that.

"Which _aliens?_ " she interrogated, "The Daleks? Are they what you're thinking of?!"

Louise sighed. "Oswin…" she trailed off.

Oswin sighed and swiftly looked away. Although she was usually a rather easy person to get along with, she had an awful temper when it came to the Daleks. Although she'd never admitted it to anyone, much more happened to her the day her father was killed and part of her would never forget it…

"No, I'm sorry." she whispered, "I always take it out on you, don't I?"

Louise smiled softly and placed her hand on Oswin's shoulder. Oswin smiled back at her before blinking several times in order to prevent herself from crying. It still hurt to think about her Dad and she was so thankful that Louise didn't take it personally, if she did, she would have lost her a long time ago…

"Maybe we should go to our quarters." suggested Louise, breaking the silence which had fallen upon them, "Get dressed up and then head down to the Mess Hall for dinner. Most of the crew will be there by now."

Oswin nodded before smiled down at her friend. "Good idea." she agreed, "I know for a fact Harvey still owes me that drink, and I'm sure I can talk him into getting you one too."

Louise giggled slightly and rolled her eyes. "And how you gonna do that?" she questioned.

Oswin's smile expanded and her eyebrow rose.

"Do you really need me to answer that one?" she queried with a hint of cheekiness leaking into her voice.

Louise laughed as they began to head out of the Entertainment Hall.

"What would I do without you?" she queried, "Getting me free drinks off the poor, unsuspecting crew members?"

Oswin winked as the left the hall and began walking down the corridor.

"Ain't that what friends are for?" she asked.

* * *

"Another one when you're ready, Harvey!" Oswin called over the collective gossip of her fellow shipmates.

They were all gathered around three tables at the edge of the Mess Hall, closest to the galley – and the bar. Harvey, one of the senior technicians onboard the ship, was easily the flirtiest man in their 'level' but even he was no match for Oswin when it came to teasing. However, that didn't stop him trying and giving the others a good show in the process.

"I've already got ya two." he pointed out while leaning back on the bar.

Oswin, who was sat next to Louise around one of the tables along with three other women, Carla, Jessie and Kaz, smiled playfully and shrugged her shoulders a little.

"Well, you can make it three." she told him, "Actually four, I promised Louise you'd get her one too… and I'm sure these three wouldn't object to one either."

Harvey rolled his eyes and turned to order the drinks before looking back over at her. The other women were all smiling and now looking over at Harvey as Oswin had clearly won that battle.

He shook his head and grinned over at them before retrieving the drinks and bringing them over on a silver tray.

"You, Miss Oswald," he began as he made his way over, "Will be the death of me."

Oswin shrugged her shoulders. "I'd be willing to take that chance as long as it gets me a free drink or two." she told him.

"Drinks or rounds?" he attempted to clarify as he took a seat opposite to her.

Oswin grinned as she retrieved her wine glass off the table and held it up.

"Cheers." she toasted.

"Cheers." the rest of them agreed before taking a sip of their drinks.

Harvey just rolled his eyes before joining in with the toast. Oswin's rosé wine glistened in the light as she held it in her hand and the colour intensified when she held it in front of her vibrant red dress.

Oswin put her glass back on the table a moment later and was about to continue with her conversation when she noticed her wine begin to ripple. She wasn't the only one who suddenly grew concerned and seconds later, the entire room began to shudder. The utensils in the galley began to rattle and the entire ship began to shake.

"What the hell?" asked Louise.

Oswin soon looked over at the bartender.

"Whatcha put in the wine Tommy?" she queried, making everyone smile momentarily.

However, it didn't last long as the shaking began to increase in intensity, making everybody begin to feel slightly dizzy as the ship violently began to toss them into each other.

Oswin's attention soon turned to the window as not that far from the ship's hull, she could see something forming. She couldn't explain exactly what it was but it looked vaguely similar to a tornado, only it was in space.

"What the hell is that?!" she cried.

Every person in that room turned and looked towards the anomaly which was rapidly growing in size. Their eyes all widened and they slowly began to clamber to their feet and away from the window, as if that would actually help.

"All hands, this is the Captain." Jefferson hailed over the comm. system, "Condition Red. Report to your duty stations immediately."

Everyone soon deserted the galley and began to do at the Captain ordered.

"What do we do?" Louise asked Oswin as the rest of the crew headed for their stations, "We're the Entertainment crew, we're not officers."

Oswin nodded in agreement. "We head to out quarters." she reminded her, "All civilian personnel must return to quarters in a Condition Red situation… It's for our own safety."

Louise nodded before the violence of the shuddering sent her into the wall. Oswin immediately helped her regain her balance, amazed she was actually managing to stay on her feet herself.

"You alright?" she asked Louise.

Louise nodded and continued along with her towards the crew quarters.

"I'm fine." she confirmed, "Come on!"

* * *

 **Hi all,**

 **I know some of you have read this before (Being the first chapter of the first story arc from a discontinued story) but I felt it a shame to leave it alone. Also, I have had a couple of PM's asking for me to put it back up so I thought I should do it while I have the chance.**

 **If any of you are readers of '5 Times...' I assure you its not a lost hope. I have had a lot of work on and won't be able to put anymore on until at least March. However, it will be finished**

 **Hope you're all well and enjoy reading**

 **G. G. x**


	2. A Ridiculous Miracle

**Chapter 2: A Ridiculous Miracle**

 _"Day 363: The terror continues."_

She actually couldn't believe that she'd been there for almost an entire year now. When she joined the Alaska the year before, she certainly hadn't imagined being stuck in a shipwreck on her first time out. She'd joined that ship in order to see the stars, to see somewhere awesome, but where she was certainly didn't fit the bill…

 _"Also, made another soufflé, very nearly…"_

That was all her usual day consisted of now. Then again, being stuck in the same tiny escape pod for a year, there wasn't much else she could do. She daren't go outside… no way was she going out there.

She had certainly adapted the place, mind you. Before, it had just been a standard escape pod, now it was her home. The consoles which used to be located in the centre of the room were now gathered up by the walls, most of them in pieces as she had used the components to create one 'super console'. Out of the four original chairs, only one remained now, the other three had been disassembled and recycled. Thanks to the emergency packs, she had a hammock which now acted as her bed, blankets, washing equipment, a microwave and a lot of power cells. She used those to power her replicator which gave her access to clean clothing, water and wood… that was used to block off the windows from the outside environment. Every few weeks she found herself hammering more and more planks over the windows, anything to keep her from seeing those _things_ outside.

 _"Check defences."_

That was certainly her most important job of the day. That place, wherever it was, was definitely the worst place imaginable to be stuck in. She would have actually preferred to be living in the pits of hell rather than where she was… that's why defences were so important. There was no way she would be a sitting target if those _things_ somehow found their way to her in the future.

 _"They came again last night. Still always at night, maybe they're vampires."_

Oh, didn't she wish. Vampires would have been pleasant compared to those creatures outside. Despite the fact that she had never actually seen one, she knew they were out there somewhere. Their metallic voices kind of gave them away…

Her stomach still tightened when she heard them. Two years, twenty years, it didn't matter… she'd never forgive them! Those creatures were the reason her Dad had died and she had ran, those creatures were the reason she had ended up stuck in that pod and not attempted to find the others, those creatures were the reason she would have given absolutely anything just to be rescued and taken home… What she wouldn't have given for a miracle… a ridiculous miracle would have been nice around then…

 _"Oh, and it's my Mum's birthday… Happy Birthday, Mum."_

She couldn't deny it, she missed her mother terribly. She had felt so guilty the year before, leaving Earth the day after her mother's birthday, especially as she had missed the festivities as she had been travelling up to the Alaska on her actually birthday. She had been looking forward to returning home in time for her birthday that year but there she was, stuck in a shipwreck…

 _"I did make you a soufflé, but it was too beautiful to live." she continued to recite down her digital diary recorder._

Lying on the hammock, she smiled as she ended the entry and began to listen intensely to her music playing. The player was also something she had assembled herself. The majority of the components came from the left over parts of the original consoles.

"YOU WILL LET US ENTER!" the all-too-familiar metallic voices began from beyond the immediate outside area of the escape pod, "WE WILL ENTER! WE WILL ENTER!"

Oswin sighed loudly and leant over to turn up the volume of her music. Anything to block out their voices would help.

She covered her ears with her hands and focused solely on the music. She then let her thoughts return back to her friends on the Alaska. She hadn't seen them or heard from them in almost a year, ever since the original crash. Louise, Harvey… she still wondered what had happened to them… For all she knew they could have been rescued a long time ago. Then again, they could have been dead…

* * *

" _I don't like this!" Louise cried as the rattling continued to intensify._

 _It was at a point now where even Oswin was beginning to worry. The stress on the hull must have been enormous and if she was completely honest; she was surprised the ship was still in one piece._

" _Miss Oswald." the Captain hailed, "Report to the Bridge immediately!"_

 _Oswin swiftly looked up at the ceiling as he spoke since that's where his voice sounded as if it was coming from. She frowned slightly. Why did the Captain need her?_

" _You?" asked Louise in a small state of shock._

 _Oswin shrugged her shoulders as she clambered off her bunk and fought against the intensity of the tremors._

" _I'll be back as soon as I can." she told her friend who was desperately clinging onto her bed._

 _Louise nodded in understanding as Oswin ventured out of her quarters and in the direction of the Bridge. She passed many crew members who were clambering along the walls to wherever it was they needed to be._

 _As Oswin approached the Bridge, she saw the ship's Commander holding the door open for her and supporting himself in the process._

" _Miss Oswald!" he shouted over the noise of many consoles sounding on the Bridge and the general clattering of the ship, "The Captain needs you now!"_

 _Oswin swiftly glided through the door which the Commander proceeded to close behind her._

" _Captain?" she queried._

 _Captain Jefferson was holding onto a rail while watching the space tornado anomaly approach the ship at a rather quickened pace. She briefly glanced around while the Captain fought against the forces in order to look at her. From what she could see, the pilot and co-pilot were dead after some sort of console overload, two junior officers were badly injured with massive burns on the left side of the Bridge and there were many broken conduits which resulted in debris being scattered all over the floor._

" _Miss Oswald!" the Captain cried over the racket, "I've seen your Academy reports… You're a qualified pilot, are you not?"_

 _Oswin shook her head. "No, sir!" she responded, "I dropped out of the Academy before my examinations!"_

 _Jefferson nodded in understanding. "But you completed all your training?" he queried._

 _Oswin nodded. "Yes, sir." she answered._

 _Jefferson smiled a little. "Can you fly a Starliner like this?" he questioned, referring to the Alaska and silently hoping for to say 'yes'._

 _Oswin nodded once again. "Yes, sir." she responded, "But I'm not legally qualified!"_

 _Jefferson shook his head. "We're desperate, Miss Oswald!" he exclaimed, "Take the helm!"_

 _Oswin complied within moments and clambered down to the helm, careful not to trip over the lifeless bodies of the pilot and co-pilot. She gulped slightly as she took her seat which had once belonged to one of them. She could feel her heart beating at the back of her throat, they looked rather young, probably both in their mid-twenties, much too young to die._

" _Move us away from it!" the Captain ordered, referring to the anomaly hard to starboard._

 _Oswin did as ordered, immediately slamming the manoeuvring thrusters into gear and attempting to move the ship away. The ride wasn't smooth and Oswin found it rather difficult as the thrusters were near enough destroyed._

 _It didn't take her long to notice that the stress on the hull was reaching critical levels. They wouldn't be able to remain in flight much longer…_

" _Is there a problem, Miss Oswald?" the Captain asked when he saw her gulp at one particular reading._

" _We need to land the ship, sir." she told him._

" _What?!" he cried as he once again was shook by the tremors._

" _She's correct, sir." the Commander piped up as he read his console on the other side of the Bridge, "The hull's beginning to buckle!"_

 _The Captain sighed and looked over another officer on the opposite side of the Bridge._

" _Suggestions?" he queried._

" _There's an M-Class planet bearing 156 mark 294." the officer reported._

 _The Captain smiled softly. "I'll take it!" he exclaimed._

 _By the time he said that, Oswin was already piloting the Alaska towards that planet. However, as they approached, she noticed there was a problem._

" _We can't land here!" she cried._

" _Explain!" demanded Jefferson._

" _There's some sort of force field…" she explained, "If the ship hits that, there won't be a ship left!"_

" _The hull's buckling!" the Commander cried._

 _Oswin's eyes widened as the ship began to fall towards the planet as it was stuck in its gravity field._

" _Everybody hang on!" she cried._

 _The Captain gripped onto his chair as the ship fell. He honestly didn't think the tremors could have gotten any worse, however, he was wrong._

" _I could do with some helpful suggestions any time now!" he cried as the planet, and the force field, got much closer on the viewscreen._

 _Oswin sighed. She had an idea… She knew it wasn't really her place but providing the Captain agreed, it would theoretically save everybody's lives._

" _Set the shields to a variance of 0.449…326…1127." she said aloud after working it out._

 _The Captain frowned. "Miss Oswald?" he quizzed._

" _I don't have time to explain." she told him, "Please, just trust me."_

 _The Commander's eyes widened slightly. "That would punch a hole through the force field, am I right?" he asked._

 _Oswin nodded, still attempting to slow the Alaska's fall._

" _Yes, sir." she replied._

" _How did you work that out so quickly?" he asked._

" _It doesn't matter!" interrupted the Captain before turning back to Oswin, "The force of puncturing that hole would destroy the shield grid… and with the current vector of the ship's fall, it would break up in the atmosphere."_

" _I know." confirmed Oswin, "But it either breaks up during the decent or it's destroyed when it hits the force field. It's your call, Captain."_

 _Jefferson gulped. That wasn't exactly how he expected his first command to be, a choice between two negatives…_

" _We could launch the escape pods." suggested the Commander, "Abandon ship and allow the ship to fall."_

 _Oswin shook her head. "We're too close to the force field." she explained, "Even if the ship somehow survived hitting it, the escape pods certainly wouldn't… Captain!"_

 _Jefferson nodded. "Mr. Parks." he stated, referring to the young officer, "Set the shields to a variance of…"_

" _0.4493261127." Oswin finished._

" _Aye, sir." acknowledged the young officer._

" _Commander, get the crew to the escape pods." he ordered._

 _Both Oswin and the Commander frowned. "Sir?!" he cried._

" _As soon as the ship passes through the force field, the ship will begin to disintegrate." he said, "If the escape pods are launched then, the crew will be safe. Begin the evacuation."_

" _Aye, sir." acknowledged the Commander before taking everyone from the Bridge with him, barring the Captain and Oswin._

 _Oswin turned to the Captain when he appeared at her side._

" _What about you, sir?" she asked._

 _Jefferson sighed. "Captain's prerogative." he told her, "You go down with the ship… Once you've bounced through the force field, get to an escape pod. I'll take it from there."_

 _Oswin nodded slowly. "Aye, sir." she agreed._

 _It hadn't taken her long after that to bounce the ship through the force field. She then made her way to the escape pod and abandoned the ship while the Alaska continued to fall. It had only taken minutes after that to crash and destroy itself… the Captain along with it…_

She couldn't remember exactly what happened after that. She remembered being in the same escape pod as Louise and Harvey, but everything after that was just a blank…

* * *

It took her a few minutes to realise that the voices had stopped and once she had, she slowly stood up and stretched her arms before lowering the volume of her music player. She might have loved her opera music, but she didn't want it to make her deaf.

She ventured towards the back of the pod and was about to get a glass of water from the replicator when a voice echoed throughout the pod.

" _Hello? Hello? Carmen… Hello?"_ a voice asked.

She immediately flicked her head around the corner and looked over at the console from which the voice was coming from.

"Hello?" she asked to herself, for a second believing it was just some sort of dream.

" _Come in. Come in. Come in, Carmen."_ the voice continued.

"Hello!" she cried, racing over to the console.

She couldn't help but smile. Finally, after all this time, was this the ridiculous miracle she had been waiting for?


	3. The Rescue Party

**Chapter 3: The Rescue Party**

"Yes! Yes, sorry." she continued to say to herself before she managed to activate the speaker, "Do you read me?"

" _Yes, reading you loud and clear."_ the man confirmed, _"Identify yourself and report your status."_

Oswin smiled properly for the first time in ages. However, she couldn't help but think that it was somehow a dream. Maybe all the murdered soufflés were getting to her head.

"Hello…" she repeated, "Are you real? Are you actually, properly real?"

She heard the man laughed slightly. _"Yep, confirmed."_ he guaranteed, _"Actually, properly real."_

Oswin grinned and sighed slightly before continuing.

"Oswin Oswald, Junior Entertainment Manager: Starship Alaska. Current status – crashed and shipwrecked somewhere… not nice." she told him, "Been here a year, rest of the crew missing. Provisions good but… keen to move on."

 _"A year?!"_ the man questioned in a minor state of disbelief, _"Are you OK, are you… under attack?"_

Oswin sighed. "Some local life-forms." she answered before turned to face the boarded up window, "I've been keeping them out."

 _"Do you know what those life-forms are?"_ the man asked her.

Oswin sighed once again. Of course she knew what those things were, how could she not…

"I know a _Dalek_ when I hear one, yeah." she confirmed.

 _"What have you been doing,_ ** _on your own_** _, against the Daleks_ ** _for a year?_** _"_ he asked her.

She considered it. Not much really…

"Making soufflés..." she told him, feeling a bit silly as she said it.

" _Soufflés_?" he attempted to confirm with a tiny giggle, "Against the Daleks?"

Oswin smiled slightly. She was about to continue but he managed to speak first.

" _Where'd you get the milk?"_ he quizzed.

Suddenly, the transmission began to become static, scrambling his voice and soon ending.

"No!" she cried as she futilely began to try to get it back, "Hello? Hello?"

After a moment it was clear that the man was certainly gone.

"Damn…" she moaned before flopping back into her chair.

* * *

After about ten minutes of complete silence, Oswin had had enough. She had hoped that the man would end up communicating with her again but that certainly wasn't the case.

She sighed before pulling the keyboard away from the console and onto her lap once she'd pulled her legs up onto the chair.

"Right…" she said to herself as she began to work.

She had absolutely no idea what she was looking for, just something out of the ordinary. The planet itself seemed normal. All the Daleks were registering like how they usually did; most of them were catatonic while others just drifted lazily over the planet's surface.

"Ooh… hello." she said aloud when her sensors picked up something which was certainly new.

Above the planet in the highest orbit possible was a vessel. At first she couldn't tell what design it was but it didn't take her long to find out.

Her eyes widened slightly. It was Dalek ship… were they sending in reinforcements? If they were, she was definitely in trouble. However, if that were the case, they'd have to deactivate the force field first and that could only be done internally. Maybe it wasn't going to be much of a problem after all.

She was just about to put the keyboard away when she detected something. She immediately began typing as fast as she could, her aim to see what was happening. At that moment, the ship above the planet emitted three beams which cut through the force field like butter. She would have been scared that new Daleks were entering if she hadn't of detected humanoid life signs.

Without second thought, she accessed dormant eye stalks on the planet surface near to where the beams had deposited the humanoids. She used the stalks to see one of them lying in the snow.

She smiled slightly as she brought the image up onto the screen. There on the screen, clearly a little dazed, was a man who definitely looked human. Apart from his attire, he looked rather good. His brown floppy hair was ruffled on the top of his head, getting soaked by the snow he was lay in. The dress sense seemed less appealing, a brown tweed jacket and blue bowtie, but no matter how strange it looked, she had to admit that he was somehow pulling it off.

It took him a few moments to register what he was seeing when he saw the eyestalk but once he had, he just started laughing to himself.

Oswin smiled and leant forward to flick a switch in order to activate the speaker. However, instead she was deafened by her music which suddenly activated.

"Sorry, sorry!" she apologised as she quickly changed it over, "Pressed the wrong switch."

The man frowned slightly as he raised his head. _"Soufflé girl?"_ he queried.

She raised her eyebrow slightly at his image on the screen.

"You could always call me Oswin, seeing as that's my name." she pointed out as he rolled over to get closer to the eyestalk, "You okay?"

She could see he was rather confused but she couldn't tell whether that was normal as she didn't know him or whether it was because he had just been dropped from orbit. Surely that would mess with your head…

" _How are you doing that, eh?"_ he queried as he began tapping on the lens, _"This is Dalek technology."_

Oswin looked down at her console and shrugged her shoulders very slightly.

"Well, it's very easy to hack." she told him.

" _No it isn't!"_ he objected before pulling out a noisy device which glowed green when he used it on the eyestalk, _"Where are you?"_

"Ship broke up when it hit. I'm somewhere… underground, I think." she replied, "You coming to get me?"

For the first time ever she was actually hopeful. If she was completely honest, she'd given up hope of being rescued. After a year of being stuck within the heart of a Dalek infested planet, she doubted that she'd ever get out but here was someone, whoever he was, who seemed to have the ability to rescue her. Of course she was a little bit hopeful!

Suddenly, the transmission began to break, making his voice become static for several milliseconds while his image rippled.

" _Hey! Oi!"_ he exclaimed as he tapped on the lens once again, _"Soufflé girl, come back!"_

"Damn…" she moaned as she lost the transmission, despite the fact she attempted to keep it going, "For God sake!"

She let her head fly back and hit off the chair. She sighed and looked back up at the blank screen. He was gone… again!

* * *

It had been a good half an hour since the man and his female companion, a Scottish girl with fabulous red hair, had been in contact with her, not that she actually spoke to the woman. However, after searching for their whereabouts for the last twenty minutes, she had finally located them in, believe it or not, another escape pod from her ship.

She managed to get a visual on them just as they entered cockpit of that particular pod. They were both leant up against the door, clearly out of breath after escaping from something which they had managed to lock out. However, she hadn't a clue what it was that they had been escaping from.

"Unauthorised personnel may not enter the cockpit." she stated in a voice which made her sound vaguely like a computer.

However, she doubted that any voice she put on would have been able to hide her amusement.

" _Shut up!"_ the man cried.

"Oh, Mr Grumpy." she moaned as he moved over to the Dalek camera she was watching them with, "Bad combo. No sense of humour and _that_ chin."

" _Is that her again?"_ the Scottish woman asked the man, _"Soufflé girl?"_

" _Yeah, she- Oi!"_ he interrupted himself when he fully processed her words, _"What is wrong with my chin?"_

Oswin smiled before raising her eyebrow.

"Careful dear." she warned, "You'll put someone's eye out."

Oswin noticed the woman sniggered slightly while the man, slightly dumbfounded, began to run his hand over _that_ chin. She couldn't help flirting, she'd always been a very flirtatious person and seeing as she hadn't had the opportunity to flirt which anyone in over a year, it was safe to say that she'd still got _it_.

"Scanning you." she told them as she initiated a scan from her wristwatch-type device, "You're on another one of the escape pods from the Alaska, right? The same ship I was on?"

" _Yes but- How can you hack into everything? It should be impossible!"_ cried the man, _"You're in a crashed ship!"_

Oswin sighed. "Long story." she explained before closing the device and looking back as his devilishly handsome face which was covering her viewscreen, "Is there a word for total screaming genius which sounds modest and a tiny bit sexy?"

The man raised his eyebrow very slightly and smiled into the lens _. "Doctor."_ he answered, _"You call me, the Doctor."_

Oswin smirked. "See what you did there." she told him before returning to scan the section of the pod they were in, "Check the floor. I'm picking up a breech at floor level. There could be a way out… See you later."

Oswin smiled to herself as she ended the transmission and shoved the keyboard back onto the console.

"Right…" she said to herself as she stood up, "Need a drink…"

She happily skipped to the back of the pod and activated the replicator. It took its usual time to boot up, somewhere between ridiculously slow and downright annoyingly slow. Then again, it was working off power cells charged up by thermal power. Honestly, the amount of blankets she placed over them in order to charge them up at night was preposterous. They were usually more comfortable than she was… and they weren't even alive!

"Come on!" she cried before abruptly hitting the top of the device.

It was rare for her to be impatient but she was desperate to get back to the console. For the first time in ages she actually had something to do apart from mess with the Dalek systems.

It was then that she heard an alarm, an alarm she had never heard before. She snapped her head around the corner and looked in the direction that the sound was coming from. A deep frown crept up onto her face.

"What the hell…?" she said aloud.

It didn't take her long to notice a light flashing on the console. Her eyebrow raised a little as she dashed over. It certainly wasn't good, especially as she believed that that light was long dead…

She fell back onto the chair and retrieved the keyboard in one swift action, her fingers typing away at a pace they hadn't in a long time.

"Uh-oh…" she grunted, her eyes widening as she activated a camera in a vault where another male human was.

The room he was in was filled with Daleks, most of them catatonic but there was a major problem: they were waking up!

Without second thought she reached over and slapped down a switch before beginning to activate the door controls in that particular section of the vault.

"Run! The door at the end, run for it!" she screamed, making him jump in the process, "They're waking up, but they're slow. The door at the end, just run. Now! Now! Now!"

She felt her heart pounding as he did as ordered; completely bewildered and narrowly missing several laser blasts. Once he was through and the door was closed behind him, she breathed out a small sigh of relief. That had been much too close…

"So anyway," she brought herself to say, "I'm Oswin. What do I call you?"

" _Er…"_ he struggled as his head spun, _"I can't remember… Er, Rory."_

Oswin smiled. "Lovely name, Rory. First boy I ever fancied was called Rory."

" _Okay…"_ he agreed, not really registering what was being said.

Oswin turned her attention away from the screen slightly and considered what she had just said.

"Actually she was called Nina." she admitted, "I was going through a phase…"

Rory looked up towards the direction of her voice and nodded slightly.

"Just flirting to keep you cheerful." she explained.

Rory clambered to his feet while the now awake Daleks repeatedly screamed their dreaded battle cry. He shuddered slightly as the voices drilled into his head before turning to look at the camera he assumed Oswin was watching him from.

" _Er, okay."_ he said before looking back in the direction of the Dalek voices, _"Anytime you wanna start flirting again is fine by me."_

Oswin giggled slightly as he apprehensively began to walk down the darkened corridor.

Although she couldn't deny he was pretty good-looking, he just wasn't the right man for anybody barring the person who was clearly on his mind. Anyone could have seen that he was clearly a man in love; a more appropriate word would have been smitten. However, there was a pain in his eyes which made her feel extremely sorry for him. There was obviously something wrong, something she sincerely hoped would be corrected before his heart broke more than it already had…


	4. A Man with a Plan

**Chapter 4: Man with a Plan**

It had been a few minutes since Oswin had checked up on the three newbie's on the planet. After finally getting her water from the replicator, albeit after a series of curses as it had thrown a few minor tantrums, she made her way over to the console and checked on the Doctor and his red-headed companion. They seemed to be doing fine, barring the fact that the woman was in danger as she was slowly being re-written by the nano-cloud.

The other male, Rory, was still alone and heading down the ridiculously long, dark corridor. He was doing okay, lighting the area with a tiny torch, but it was beginning to flicker at that point. That was probably due to the nano-genes in the air absorbing the power and using it to boost their own circuitry.

She sat down once again and retrieved the keyboard.

"Hey there, beaky boy." she greeted activating activating a speaker in that section.

" _If it's a straight choice, I prefer Nina."_ he told her.

Oswin laughed at his innocence. "Loving this." she told him, "The Nose and the Chin… you two could fence."

Rory smiled slightly.

"There's a door behind you." she told him as it began to rise, "In there quickly."

Rory did as ordered and entered the room. It was better lit that the corridor and contained some sort of large circular device on the floor which he went over to.

"Okay, you're safe for now." she guaranteed him, "Pop your shirt off, quick as you like."

Rory immediately frowned. _"Why?"_ he queried.

Oswin raised her eyebrows a little. "Does there have to be a reason?" she asked him.

" _Oswin!"_ the Doctor's voice called on another speaker to her left.

"Ooh, back in a mo." she told Rory before changing over the speakers.

" _Oswin, can you hear me?"_ the Doctor questioned.

"Hello, the chin." she greeted as she activated a camera in his section, "I have a visual on you."

She looked up at the screen and smiled as he looked up at the lens.

" _Why don't I have a visual on you?"_ he asked her, _"Why can't I ever see you?"_

Oswin shrugged her shoulders. "Limited power, bad hair: take your pick." she told him, "There's a door on your left. Open it."

The Doctor did as she said and opened a door which revealed a small screen.

"I'm going to send you a map to that screen." she told him, "I put your little friend somewhere safe. I can get you to him."

" _Rory?"_ he asked, _"You found Rory?"_

Oswin smiled. "I call him Nina. Personal thing, hush now."

She smiled at the ridiculous man on the screen in front of her. She still couldn't get passed his bizarre dress sense but he himself deeply intrigued her and if she was honest, possibly in a few more ways than one.

 _"How many Daleks directly ahead of me right now?"_ he asked her.

Oswin shrugged her shoulders. "Hard to say." she replied, "Some of them are catatonic but they do have fire power."

 _"How do I get passed them?"_ he asked before noticing his friend wander off into dangerous territory, _"Amy!"_

Oswin watched intensely as after he managed to persuade Amy out of the chamber, a Dalek began to pursue them up the corridor. Her eyes widened a little as they ran back to a rope ladder which was also unavailable as converted dead bodies were approaching them via it.

"Oh my God…" she whispered when she got a first decent look at the zombie creatures.

She felt her stomach turn slightly when she realised they were wearing emergency fur coats left on Starship Alaska escape pods. Those bodies, those people, they were members of her crew…

She bit her lip and zoomed the camera onto them. They looked possessed… and dead, obviously, with mini Dalek eyestalk's sticking out of their foreheads. She sighed as she continued to watch them climb down the ladder. She couldn't help but wonder exactly who those people used to be.

She was about to move the camera away when she noticed something around one of the bodies' neck's. Her lip quivered and she covered her mouth in order to stop herself from crying out.

"No…" she whispered, feeling her eyes fill up as her foot began to quiver.

Around one of the necks was a small golden chain which held a small diamond cross. It was barely big enough to see until she zoomed in closer. However, she had noticed it for a reason… It was the necklace she had brought Louise after passing her exams at the Academy.

That body… it was her friend's…

She quickly moved the camera away from the bodies and back to the Doctor and Amy. Anything to keep her mind off the fact that her friend was dead, and certainly not resting in peace.

"… _Come on. Who's your daddy?"_ the Doctor questioned the lone Dalek.

" _You-are-the-Predator."_ it stated.

Oswin frowned. 'Predator'? Why did the Daleks call him 'The Predator'? How did he even know the Daleks?

" _Access your standing orders concerning the Predator."_ he ordered it.

" _The-Predator-must-be-destroyed."_ it recited.

Oswin's eyes widened in horror but by the smirk on his face, he obviously had a plan. Well, she hoped he had a plan.

" _And how are you gonna do that, Dalek?"_ he queried, _"Without a gun, you're a tricycle with a roof. How are_ ** _you_** _going to destroy_ ** _me_** _?"_

It took a few moments before the creature began to emit an alarm which made Oswin frown. She had monitored the Daleks for the past year but never before had she seen that.

" _Self-destruct-initiated."_ it stated.

" _What's it doing?"_ asked Amy.

" _It's going to blow itself up, and us with it."_ he answered, " _Only weapon it's got left."_

Oswin watched as he then proceeded to point his noisy device at the creature and lift the lid.

" _Self-destruct-cannot-be-countermanded."_ it explained.

The Doctor smirked. _"I'm not looking for countermand, dear."_ he told it, _"I'm looking for reverse."_

With that, he slammed the lid down and gave the Dalek a whopping kick as it began to travel back towards the chamber, clearly against its will.

Oswin watched as the Dalek collided with the others and exploded, sending ripples throughout the structure. The transmission was ended by the explosion and she gasped slightly, turning towards the direction of the explosion. Wherever it had occurred, she had felt it. Maybe she wasn't as far away from them as she had thought…

* * *

It had been a good fifteen minutes before she managed to re-establish a link with the Doctor, _Nina_ and Amy. They were all now in the original room where she had led Rory and Amy was in a minor comatose state with the two men looking down at her as she lay on the circular pad.

" _Will sleeping help her?"_ Rory questioned the Doctor, _"Will it slow down the process?"_

Oswin sighed. "You better hope so." she told them, "Because pretty soon she's gonna try and kill you."

She didn't mean to be dreary, she really didn't, but her heart was hurting as she had just discovered her best friend was now dead…

At that time, Rory said something inaudible to Amy and ended up receiving a massive slap off her, making Oswin's attention return back to them.

" _Same old Amy."_ the Doctor said with a smile before leaving his two companions and returning to work.

"Do you know how you make someone into a Dalek?" she asked, not really expecting an answer, "Subtract love, add anger… Doesn't she seem a bit too angry to you?"

" _Well, somebody's never been to Scotland."_ she stated.

" _What about you, though, Oswin… How come you're okay?"_ the Doctor questioned, " _Why hasn't the nano-cloud converted you?"_

Oswin smiled a little. "I mentioned the genius thing, yeah?" she said, "Shielded in here."

The Doctor smiled as he made eye contact with the camera lens.

" _Clever you."_ he complimented before looking around at the Asylum, _"Now, this place. The Daleks said it was fully automated but look at it. It's a wreck!"_

"Well, I've had nearly a year to mess with them," she pointed out, "And not a lot else to do."

The Doctor shook his head slightly in a small state of confusion.

" _A Junior Entertainment Manager hiding out in a wrecked ship, hacking the security systems of the most advanced warrior race the universe has ever seen. But you know what really gets me about you, Oswin? The soufflés. Where do you get milk for the soufflés?"_ he queried before looking around at Amy and Rory, _"Seriously, is no one else wondering about that?"_

" _No."_ stated Rory, _"Frankly, no… Twice."_

"So, Doctor. I've been looking you up." Oswin told him, bringing his attention back to something more important than soufflés, "You're all over the database. Why do the Daleks call you the Predator?"

The Doctor smiled. _"I'm not the Predator, I'm just a man with a plan."_ he told her.

Oswin's eyes widened. "You've got a plan?" she asked, her voice with a hint of happiness.

" _In no particular order, we need to neutralise all the Daleks in this Asylum, rescue Oswin from the wreckage, escape from this planet and fix Amy and Rory's marriage."_ he put forward.

Amy shrugged her shoulders. _"Okay, I'm counting three lost causes. Anyone else?"_

The Doctor rolled his eyes and attempted to hide his frustration by turning back to the camera.

" _Oswin, there's a Dalek ship in orbit."_ he informed her.

She nodded. "Yes. Got it on the sensors." he told him.

" _The Asylum has a force field."_ he explained, assuming she didn't already know that, "The Daleks upstairs are waiting for me to turn it off. Soon as I do, they'll burn this whole world and us with it. So, Oswin, my question is this: How fast can you drop the force field?"

She couldn't help but frown slightly. "Pretty fast." she replied, "But why would I?"

" _Because this is a teleport."_ he said referring to the pad Amy was still one, _"Am I right, Oswin?"_

She nodded. "Yeah. Internal use only." she answered.

" _I can boost the power. Once the force field is down, I can use it to beam us right off this planet."_ he told them all.

After a few objections from his companions, the Doctor turned back to the camera.

" _Oswin, how fast can you drop the force field?"_ he queried.

"I can do it from here." she told him, "As soon as you come and get me."

" _No, just drop the force field and come to us."_ he told her.

Oswin raised her eyebrow slightly. "There's enough power in that teleport for one go. Why would you wait for me?" she enquired.

The Doctor stopped what he was doing and looked directly into the camera lens.

" _Why wouldn't I?"_ he asked her.

Oswin shrugged her shoulders. _"No idea. Never met you."_ she stated, _"Sending you a map so you can come get me."_

" _This place is crawling with Daleks!"_ Rory cried as she sent the map.

She immediately looked up at the screen. _"Yeah."_ she expressed, _"Kind of why I'm anxious to leave… Come up and see me sometime."_

It was then that she flopped back into her chair. Finally, after all this time, she was about to be rescued from that hell-hole. Finally, she was about to leave the Dalek infested planet and best of all; she was going to get to know who the Doctor really was…


	5. Coming Clean

**Chapter 5: Coming Clean**

Wiping away a lone tear which had just trickled down her face, Oswin switched the camera away from Amy and Rory and back to the Doctor.

She did feel a little bit like a Peeping Tom, especially after witnessing what had just occurred between the pair of them. All day she had believed that Amy had been rather cold-hearted to Rory after her constant snide comments towards him. However, after just witnessing her admit the truth about why she 'gave him up'; she felt her heart go out to them. They really were brilliant for one another, each of them willing to suffer in silence as long as it stopped the other one hurting.

Oswin pulled herself together just as she turned the camera onto the Doctor who was straightening his bowtie.

"Why did you do that?" she questioned him.

The Doctor frowned momentarily. " _I don't know what you're talking about."_ he told her.

Oswin smirked a little. "You may be a total screaming genius but you're a lousy liar." she told him, "Now, don't insult my intelligence… You gave her that band to keep her safe, but you didn't tell them because you hoped they'd talk about it… why?"

The Doctor stopped in his tracks and lent back on the wall.

" _They're too special to me just to give up everything they have together."_ he confessed.

Oswin smiled softly. "You care for them?" she asked.

The Doctor nodded. _"More than anything."_ he admitted, " _They're_ ** _my_** _Ponds…"_

Oswin sighed as she saw some sort of pain etched onto his face, a pain which made him seem incredibly old. It was like he had seen many things, thing's she'd never understand.

" _So, what about you?"_ he asked her.

"Sorry?" she queried.

" _Come on."_ he told her, " _I've just admitted my feelings, but what about you? I mean, who are you?"_

Oswin frowned a little. "No-one special." she replied, "I mean, I'm Oswin. I was born in Westminster in London and, I always wanted a life in space. That's it."

The Doctor nodded as he ingested her answers. It took him a few moments before he dared to ask his next question.

" _What happened to you?"_ he asked.

Oswin's frown deepened. "What do you mean?" she questioned.

The Doctor looked up at the camera and directly into her eyes, not that he actually knew he was doing that.

" _There's just something about you… when it comes to the Daleks."_ he stated, _"It's like… like you have something personal against them, and I'm not just talking about being stuck on the same planet as them for a year."_

Oswin gulped. "How… how can you know that?" she enquired.

The Doctor smiled weakly. _"Because you're not disagreeing with it."_ he pointed out.

Oswin sighed. "Stop being… clever." she stated.

The Doctor laughed a little which made her smile slightly.

" _So what happened?"_ he asked once again.

Oswin sighed deeply before sliding back into her chair.

"They… they killed my Dad." she explained, "A Dalek attack in Massachusetts a couple of years ago."

The Doctor felt his hearts drop a little. Poor woman, no wonder she was angry with them. They had ripped her family apart…

" _You were there, weren't you?"_ he attempted to confirm.

Oswin gasped rather quietly. "How the hell do you know that?" she quizzed.

The Doctor sighed. _"The way you try to disguise your hatred to them… but it's like it's more than that… You saw something or experienced something, and it was there…"_ he answered.

Oswin shook her head in a state of disbelief. She'd only met him that day but he already could read her like a book. She wasn't sure that she was supposed to like that, but she kind of did… After a year in isolation, she was happy just to have someone to talk to and who could understand her.

 _"I was there too."_ he admitted.

Oswin's eyes widened a little. "You?" she queried.

The Doctor nodded. _"I was on the Primary Attack Ship warding off the Daleks." he explained, "The 50 Minute Invasion of Massachusetts, how could I not be there?"_

 _"The entire state slaughtered, all barring seven children found in Hancock Place."_ he continued, _"Apparently there was a woman too but nobody knew who she was…"_

Oswin felt her lip quiver as the memories began to return. "That… that was me…" she admitted.

The Doctor nodded. _"I know."_ he confessed as he had just worked it out, _"What happened to you in there? I mean, I've seen Daleks before, many times in fact, but I've never seen them act the way they did that day… They just froze and stopped the attack. Daleks don't do that… They don't just stop and leave…"_

Oswin gulped as he turned once again to look directly into the camera, explaining the memories which kept her awake most nights.

" _What happened in there?"_ he interrogated.

Oswin gulped slightly. "I… I don't know." she replied, "I don't understand why they stopped, they just did."

The Doctor shook his head. _"No…"_ he said as he shook his head _, "Come on Oswin. You know as well as I do, Daleks don't leave survivors. Why did they spare you? What happened… what_ ** _physically_** _happened before they stopped?"_

Oswin sighed once again and slowly shook her head. It was strange. She had never told anybody exactly what had happened that day, not even the authorities. She had no idea why she seemed to trust that man but his gentle face seemed to coax the words out of her… not that she was complaining.

"You know, I ask myself that everyday." she confessed, "I did exactly what the other man did and they killed him… but not me."

The Doctor bit his lip a little. He could hear that she was suffering, her words crackling as she remembered that day which had left him questioning his knowledge of the Daleks.

" _It hurts you, doesn't it?"_ he enquired, his hearts actually hurting as they beat in his chest.

He may not of known her that long, but the level of care he felt for her was like no other. Never before had he felt so attached to someone so quickly…

Oswin didn't need to answer his question. The fact that she had fallen deadly silent was all the confirmation he needed.

" _Tell me what happened."_ he pleaded, _"Maybe coming clean will help you."_

Oswin shook her head. "I don't wanna bore you with it." she said to him.

The Doctor smiled softly. _"I'm still listening."_ he stated.

Oswin bit her lip before slowly bending forward and resting her elbows on her knees.

"The… The Daleks came, and people ran." she began, "So did I…"

 _They were getting closer, the intervals between each laser blast was decreasing by the second. With her fingers firmly interlocking with her father's, Oswin ran as fast as her legs could carry her._

 _It was safe to say she was petrified. Although she was used to seeing aliens, after all, Earth was a regular travel destination for the passing humanoid creature, but never before had she been in an attack of any kind. She heard of a few on local media postages but she'd never actually been in one, not even near to one._

 _People were screaming around her as the blasts hit their fragile bodies and deposited them on the hard tarmac below. Buildings burnt, ground vehicles exploded, rubble fell… it was absolute chaos!_

"We were ushered into a building by one of the USS Valiant Officers, the ancient 'Hancock Place' to be exact." Oswin continued, "There were nine of them in Boston that day. God knows how, but they managed to deadlock the building, temporarily…"

 _It was at the point now that she believed that she was about to die. Outside, all the streets were deadly still, all the people scattered lifelessly down the pavements. The state was burning around them but the Daleks still hadn't finished. They had all begun to group around the building, all shrieking their dreaded battle cry while attempting to gain access into Hancock Place._

 _Oswin gripped tightly onto her father's hand while she looked around at the people inside the lobby with her. There must have been about fifty, not many considering the state itself had been swarming with people earlier that day._

 _The nine Valiant Officers were futilely attempting to calm the crowd but that wasn't an easy task as they were all minutes away from facing their deaths. However, the crew Officers did have the chance to escape, namely their transport beacons which were strapped around their wrists, not that they even considered just abandoning civilians. They would have been worse than facing death, that would have gone against every principle that their uniform stood for!_

 _Oswin soon broke away from her father's grip when she spotted a child sobbing her heart out, clearly lost as she made her way through the crowd. She was only four or five years old, clearly upset and lost._

" _Where's my Mommy?!" she cried, "Mommy! Where is she?!"_

 _Oswin brushed her own fears aside and ran over to her, immediately crouching down in front of her and attempting to alleviate her fear._

" _Hey…" she soothed._

" _Where's my Mommy?" she sobbed, "She's not here. Where is she?"_

 _Oswin felt her heart break. The poor girl was in pieces. She didn't understand what was going on… didn't understand that her mother was probably one of the thousands of people dead outside._

 _Oswin pulled her into her arms, her best attempt to comfort the lost little soul. The girl didn't pull back; she just stayed in the only safe place available: Oswin's arms._

"It was then that the Valiant Officers gave up their transport beacons." Oswin explained to the Doctor, "There were seven children in the group. Each of them were fitted with a beacon and the remaining two were given to me and a man, but they didn't work due to some Dalek interference… That's when the officers decided to hide us in the basement. They hoped that the Daleks wouldn't find us and then when the signal weakened, we could beam away…"

 _Oswin felt her breath catch as she said goodbye to her father for the last time. Part of her wanted nothing more than to allow him to escape and let her die, however, she knew for a fact he wouldn't allow that._

 _She felt so guilty that she was being given the chance to live while all the others were left as sitting ducks for the Daleks which were moments away from breaking in. The only reason she had been chosen to go with the children was because of the little girl who didn't want to leave her side…_

 _One of the Valiant Officers escorted the nine of them down to the basement. With the little girl's hand embedded in one palm and a little boy's in the other, Oswin and the rest of the group followed the officer rapidly. The screams of the people above them could be heard as the Daleks broke through the seal, making Oswin's spine shiver._

" _Right, stay here." the Officer ordered, ushering them all into one of the darkened corners of the basement._

 _Oswin and the male sat the children up in the corner, slightly hidden by ancient shelves and discarded wooden boxes._

" _God be with you all." the Officer blessed before closing the door behind him and heading back up to the onslaught._

 _Oswin and the man took a seat next to the children who were all under ten years old. They were all petrified, not that she could blame them. However, they were all being very brave and as quiet as possible._

 _Every few seconds, Oswin checked the transporter beacon around her wrist, hoping that soon interference levels would be within acceptable levels in order for them to transport away._

 _That was when it happened. An almighty explosion ripped through the room as the door was blown off its hinges. The children didn't scream, or even cry, but they all began to shake with fear as a Dalek entered the room, then another, then another._

" _Detecting-humanoid-life-signs." one stated, "EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!"_

 _Oswin braced herself as the creatures turned in their direction. From where she was sat, she could see the metal demons between the gaps between the boxes and she knew for a fact that they were all pointing their weapons at them._

" _For God sake, they're just children!" the man hissed as he stood up, revealing his location to the Daleks, "Show mercy!"_

" _No don't…" Oswin whispered in vain._

She sighed to herself as she felt her eyes watering.

"That was the worst thing he could have said." she pointed out, "Mercy! Daleks don't have _mercy_ …"

The Doctor could feel his hearts pounding. He seriously didn't understand how she managed to escape but he was extremely eager to find out. Never before had he met someone who had escaped the Daleks, well, maybe once, but never in a situation such as Oswin's.

" _EXTERMINATE!" one of them shrieked before shooting at the man and killing him stone dead._

 _Oswin gasped in horror as his body hit the ground with an almighty thud. Meanwhile, the children screamed, unable to control how panicked they felt any longer._

 _Oswin sighed deeply before doing possibly the bravest thing she had ever done._

" _Just leave them! They're just children. Young, innocent, scared children." she cried, standing up herself and looking eye-to-eye with the middle Dalek._

 _"Irrelevant!" the middle Dalek stated._

 _"FINE!" Oswin screeched, "But you have to kill me first!"_

 _Honestly, she didn't expect it would make any difference, her telling them to kill her first. However, to her surprise, it did._

 _The room remained silent, the expected battle cry failing to make an appearance._

 _After a moment, the middle one closed the distance between itself and her, making the hairs on the back of her neck raise. However, it didn't shoot. Instead, it just looked at her, the blue light in its eyestalk shining directly into her eye._

 _Oswin gulped. "What are you waiting for?" she questioned it._

 _The Dalek rotated its head and looked at the other two Daleks before looking back at her._

" _You-are…" it began before trailing off._

 _Oswin frowned, deeply alarmed by their behaviour, especially as the three of them had all lowered their weapons. She was also amazed that the shooting above them ceased, so had movement. For a moment, everything just stopped._

" _I'm what?" she managed to bring herself to say._

 _The Dalek looked at her once again._

" _Evacuate-Earth." it ordered._

 _In sync with one another, the three Daleks turned and began to head out of the room, sparing not only her, but the children too…_

"And… then it left." she finished, "They all did…"

The Doctor raised his eyebrows slightly and remained silent.

Oswin smiled weakly at his apparent confusion. "I don't know what happened that day, Doctor." she confessed, "But I really wanna know… Why did it spare my life while so many others died?"


	6. Running

**Chapter 6: Running**

The Doctor continued his treacherous trek down the corridor. He could hear movement echoing from rooms rather far away but even still, the hairs on the back of his neck were raised. Cautiously, he peered around a corner only to be greeted with another dark and gloomy, endless corridor. However, that was better than running into any Daleks.

Oswin continued to watch him on the screen as he closed the distance between her location and wherever he was.

" _Oswin, I think I'm close."_ he told her.

Oswin nodded to herself and smiled. "You are." she confirmed, "Less than twenty feet away… which is the good news."

The Doctor nodded slowly on the screen. _"Okay…"_ he agreed, _"And the bad which I suddenly feel is coming?"_

Oswin sighed. "You're about to pass through Intensive Care." she explained.

She watched as he hesitantly entered the room filled with the most insane Daleks on the entire planet. They were all in cages, either that or chained up. To be fair, she didn't believe it would be much of a problem; those ones hardly ever woke up.

" _What's so special about this lot, then?"_ the Doctor queried, his voice filled with a hint of hatred she hadn't spotted before.

"Don't know." she confessed as she pulled up their data and began to skim through it, "Survivors of particular wars: Spiridon, Kembel, Eridius, Vulcan, Exxilon… Ring any bells?"

The gulped momentarily as his speed decreased. _"All of them."_ he admitted.

Oswin's eyes widened a little. "Yeah?" she attempted to confirm, "How?"

The Doctor took in a deep breath before continuing. He had a horrible feeling about being in the midst of a room filled with those Daleks.

" _These are the Daleks who survived_ ** _me_** _…"_ he confessed.

Suddenly, something happened which Oswin seriously hadn't expected. Her console began to ring out in a chorus of alerts but she didn't need her console to show her what was happening…

" _Doc-tor?"_ one of them questioned.

" _Doc-tor."_ another stated.

Oswin's brow burrowed as her eyes widened a little.

" _Doc-tor."_ a few of them stated in sync with one another.

"That's weird." she pointed out, "Those ones don't usually wake up for anything."

The Doctor, suddenly very alarmed, ran across the room.

" _Yeah, well special visitor."_ he pointed out as he reached a door, _"Okay, door but it won't open. I can't be far away, though."_

"Hang on, not quite sure." she told him as she began to type away, "There's a release code. Let me just– anything out there?"

" _No!"_ the Doctor responded abruptly, clearly beginning to get scared.

"Hang on, I'm trying to think." she told him.

The Doctor moved closer and closer to the door as the Daleks broke free of their flimsy restraints and approached him. His pulse rate went through the roof. Although they were disarmed, there was no doubt in his mind that these weren't going to kill him!

" _Doctor."_ they began to chant, _"Doctor."_

" _Oswin, get this door open!"_ he cried, _"Oswin, open this door!"_

Her hands futilely races across the keyboard. "I can't!" she cried.

" _Oswin…"_ he pleaded.

The Doctor closed the distance between them. There was no escape, nowhere to run. This was it…

" _Just get this door open!"_ he begged, _"Oswin! Oswin, please…"_

The Daleks plunger-types device was millimetres away from his face, if that. He had seconds…

His breathing was short and sharp, his hearts beating so hard in his chest that he could hear them.

" _Get this door open!"_ he cried, _"Help me!"_

The Doctor was petrified. After everything he had been though, this was it. He was about to die. Not only that, he was taking Amy, Rory and Oswin with him. There was no way they'd escape the Asylum without him. Well, Amy and Rory stood a chance but they'd never be able to leave in the TARDIS. They'd be stranded…

Suddenly, much to his relief, the Daleks just stopped. He didn't know how or why, but they just stopped and began to move away, leaving him feeling completely baffled.

"Oh, that is cool." Oswin stated, "Tell me I'm cool, chin boy."

The Doctor, still in a state of shock, clambered to his feet.

" _What… what did you do?"_ he questioned.

"Hang on; I think I've found the door thingy." she told him.

" _No, tell me what you did!"_ he demanded.

Oswin smiled to herself. "The Daleks, they have a hive mind." she explained, "Well, they don't, they have a sort of telepathic web."

The Doctor nodded. _"The path web, yes."_ he understood.

"I hacked into it." she told him, "Did a mass delete on all the information connected with 'The Doctor'."

The Doctor gulped slightly. _"You… made them forget me?"_ he attempted to clarify.

"Good, eh?" she boasted before hitting a button on her console, "And here comes the door."

As the door rose, the Doctor leant against it, ready to see the pod where she had been living for the past year.

" _I've tried hacking into the path web."_ he told her, _"Even I couldn't do it."_

Oswin grinned. "Come and meet the girl who can."

The Doctor breathed out a deep sigh as the door finished rising and his eyes fell onto the object on the other side of the room.

He immediately felt his hearts shudder and his eyes widened. For a moment, he couldn't move so he just remained leant on the door frame, mostly for support.

"Hey, you're right outside." she stated eagerly, "Come on in."

If he was honest, he didn't understand completely. The room itself was deadly still; the only noise was her voice which was still coming from one of the speakers.

" _Oswin…"_ he managed to bring himself to say, " _We have a problem."_

She immediately looked up and out of the window which he was stood in.

"No we don't. Don't even say that!" she told him, "Joined the Alaska to see the universe, ended up stuck in a shipwreck first time out… Rescue me chin boy, and show me the stars."

The Doctor cautiously approached her. _"Does it look real to you?"_ he enquired.

Oswin frowned and looked around briefly. "Does what look real?" she questioned.

" _Where you are right now."_ the Doctor replied, _"Does it seem real?"_

"It is real." she stated abruptly.

The Doctor slowly shook his head. _"It's a dream, Oswin."_ he broke to her, _"You dreamed it for yourself because the truth was too terrible."_

The way his voice had suddenly changed filled her with enormous apprehension.

"Where am I?" she questioned.

The Doctor felt his hatred grow as her sweet voice suddenly ceased and the Dalek which stood before him began to talk.

"Where-am-I?" it queried, "Where-am-I?"

" _Because you are, a, Dalek."_ he gritted though his teeth as he approached her.

Her eyes widened in complete horror as he answered her previous question. How dare he, how dare he even say that! How dare he say that she was one of those _things_! She was _not_ , she was _not_ a Dalek! She was _not_ one of those _things_ which had unmercifully killed so many people, her father included in that sample.

"I am not a Dalek!" she screamed through her gritted teeth, "I am _not_ a Dalek! I'm human…"

" _You were human when you crashed here."_ he explained, _"It was you who climbed out of that pod. That was your ladder…"_

Oswin felt her lip quiver as she briefly remembered back to the crash… For the first time in a year, she could remember what happened after evacuating the pod. She remembered the pod crashing, she remembered leaving after telling Louise and Harvey she'd be back soon, she remembered convincing Harvey to go outside and fix the outer exterior of the pod. She remembered exploring the darkened tunnels, meeting the Daleks, the conversion…

"I'm human…" her voice trailing off as even her own words seemed wrong.

" _Not anymore."_ the Doctor stated as he placed his hand on her casing, _"Because you're right. You're a genius… and the Daleks need 'genius'. They didn't just make you a puppet; they did a full conversion…"_

"They… they changed me…" she whispered as she tried to grasp what had happened, "Changed what I was…"

The Doctor nodded slowly, desperately attempting not to let his watered eyes burst. Although he hadn't known her long, the anger he felt towards the Daleks for doing that to her was incredibly strong…

" _This… this is why that Dalek didn't kill you back in Massachusetts a few years ago."_ he explained softly, _"They knew this had to happen to you…"_

Oswin felt her anger build up. "Had to happen?!" she cried, "Who the hell are you to tell me that this _had_ to happen?!"

The Doctor sighed. _"I'm a Timelord."_ he told her, _"Time isn't kind, Oswin, it's cruel, unbelievably cruel… This was always going to happen to you. If it wasn't, you would have died a long time ago…"_

Oswin rubbed her face and brought her hands slightly over her mouth, almost as if she was praying.

" _Oswin, I am so sorry."_ the Doctor sympathised, _"But you are a Dalek!"_

Oswin shook her head a little and looked around at her pod. For the first time ever, it looked very hollow. The only thing which remained was the chair near the front. The console was near enough gone, faded with everything else… it wasn't real.

" _The milk, Oswin."_ he pointed out, _"The milk and the eggs for the soufflés. Where, where did it all come from?"_

Oswin turned to look at the back of the pod. "Eggs…" she trailed off.

" _It wasn't real."_ he confirmed, _"It was never real."_

"Eggs..." she repeated yet again.

"Stir…Min…Ate." the Dalek stated.

" _Oswin?"_ the Doctor queried.

"Eggs…" it began.

"Stir-Min-Ate." she finished.

"Exterminate!" the Dalek cried.

" _Oswin!"_ the Doctor cried, _"No, no, no, Oswin! Oswin!"_

"Exterminate!" it repeated once again.

" _Listen Oswin, you don't have to do this!"_ he attempted to make her understand.

"Exterminate!"

" _Oswin!"_ he exclaimed as she broke free from her restraints and backed up against the door.

She couldn't handle it… She felt her legs give away and she collapsed in a heap of sobs. She was gone, physically, she was gone…

"Why do they hate you so much?" she asked him.

The Doctor bit his lip and looked away. "I fought them." he answered, "Many, many times."

"We've grown stronger in fear of you." she stated.

The Doctor sighed. "I know…" he confessed in a whisper, "I tried to stop."

"Then run." she whispered.

The Doctor looked up, his eyes widened a little.

"What did you say?" he attempted to confirm.

Oswin, pulling herself together, made her way over to the console which she managed to bring back, and lowered the force field surrounding the Asylum.

"I've taken down the force field." she informed him, "The Daleks above have begun their attack… Run!"

The Doctor frowned momentarily. "Oswin, are you…?" he began.

"I am Oswin Oswald." she confirmed, interrupting his earlier question, "I fought the Daleks and I _am_ human… Remember me."

The Doctor nodded for a split second before smiling at her.

"Thank-you." he expressed.

"RUN!" she demanded.

The Doctor, not needed to be told twice, smiled in appreciation before heading off.

Oswin sighed and flopped down in her chair.

"Run you clever boy, and remember."


End file.
